Mesoamericans1 - The Aztecs

A.D. 1200, bands of nomadic people from the North migrated into the Valley of Mexico.
They identified themselves as Mexica.

Empire Expands from Gulf of Mexico in the East to the Pacific Ocean in the West.
By 1517 The Aztecs empire numbered an estimated five to six millions people.

**Government**

The Aztec Empire was an example of an empire that ruled by indirect means.
It was ethnically very diverse, but unlike most European empires, it was more of a system of tribute than a single system of government.
The Aztec empire was an informal or hegemonic empire because it did not exert supreme authority over the conquered lands, it merely expected tributes to be paid.
Ancient Aztec government got its structure from units of society that existed long before the Aztec empire was founded.
This Empire was discontinous because not all dominated territories were connected.

Society

Family Units were the basic structure of society.
The basic unit of ancient Aztec government was the Calpulli (group of families that own the land).
The highest class were the pīpiltin (noble social class) or nobility.

Examples: One Single Ruler the King, Emperors are choose by Nobles, Priests and Military Leaders.

Examples: Nobles, Served officials, Judges, and Governors of Conquered Provinces.

The government had a chance to their warriors, who could rise to Noble status by performing well on the battle field.
The third class were slaves or tlacotin. Aztecs could become slaves because of debts, as a criminal punishment or as war captives.

Religion and Mythology

According to myth, Huitzilopochtli directed the wanderers to found a city on the site where they would see an eagle devouring a snake perched on a fruit-bearing nopal cactus.
Huitzilopochtli is their main god also called el Patron God.
They build a Temple in the central of Tenochtitlan.

The religion of The Aztecs was polytheistic, based on the worship of a multitude of personla gods, most of them with well-defined attributes.
They had any type of gods for Example: Tezcatlipoca "simbolyzed night sky," Huitzipochtli "the god of migration," Tlaloc "god of water and vegetation," Tlaltecuhtli "the earth god," Mictlantecuhtli "the god of death."
The Aztecs believed that the gods had created the world multiple times. I n their Mythology it was in Teotihuacan that the gods created the world in which the Aztecs lived.

Arts and Architectures

Teotihuacan had dominated life in the Valley of Mexico from A.D. 200 to A.D. 750. While they had controlled they started building wide roads, massive temples, large apartments buildings, its population was about 200,000.

Along the main Avenue the enormous Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon
The main contribution of the Aztec rule was a system of communications between the conquered cities
The roads were designed for travel on foot.

Public Work

Priests were the keepers of the Aztecs knowledge.
They recorded Laws and Historical events in the aztecs calendar.
There were priests, scribes, accountants, teachers, architects, calendar keepers, mathematicians, astronomers, doctors, street sweepers, cooks, police, etc.
There were some people who were long-distance traders and many who traded things in the city.

Jobs Specialization

Writing

The Aztec or Nahuatl writing is a pictographic writing system.
their writing is not concidered to be completed writing system that can communicate everything that can be expressed verbally and understood without a great deal of contextual information.
their numerical system was vigesimal. they indicated quantities up to twenty by the requisite number of dots. A flat was used to indicate twenty this repeat over and over until they ritch four hundred. A sign like a fir tree, meaning numerous as hairs, signified four hundred. the next was a bag witch means eight thousand.